Dyslexia can be a gift.

I am part of a large family of right brain thinkers or what is more commonly known as “dyslexics”.  On my side alone there is my dad, sister, half-brother,  and myself that I am aware of. Then in my ex-husband’s family the list is huge: my ex-husband, my three kids, his dad, three of his brothers, one of his sisters and several of the grandchildren.

We have all had problems with reading, spelling, writing and school.  All of us have managed it in different ways.  Some more successfully than others.   My dad is a brilliant arbitrator who got through school and university creating his own methods to get around his reading problems.   My sister has been in charge of accounting departments, a CEO and an amazing contract negotiator to name but a few of her accomplishments.  I have helped create and run two construction businesses with no initial training either in construction, accounting or general management of a business.   We still own the second business and now have about 25 employees .   My ex-husband runs the company, my daughter is the general manager, my son is sales and marketing development and my other son heads up the fabricating and gate operator side of our business.   My children are in their twenties, the youngest is only twenty-five.  So despite the fact that my ex-husband has difficulty with reading and spelling,  I was a slow reader and had problems with abstract concepts,  my daughter could barely spell, read, write or do basic classroom work when she was in the sixth grade and the two boys had similar problems in school, we all overcame it.

My husband’s family relatives had varying experiences with dyslexia.   One of his brothers had problems with reading and writing coming out of high school but over the years found ways to teach himself and now is an avid reader.   He works in construction and laughs about how when he measures something he always has to measure twice, write it down and then make sure he wrote it correctly because he still reverses numbers.  One of his younger brothers who also had problems became a commercial fisherman with his own boats and crews.  We are now watching all the grandchildren and great-grandchildren to see how they handle their “right-brained” style of learning.

You are probably wondering when I am going to get to the part about dyslexia being a gift.  The people I have described have all been through horrible and humiliating experiences in school and terrified whether they would ever be able to read and write and have a normal life.   Many of them created their own systems to understand a “left-brained” world and not only went on to beat it but to succeed impressively.

The gift of dyslexia is having incredible problem solving skills due to being able to SEE the whole picture of any problem or situation.  This helps us to be adaptive with strong compensating abilities.  However this view of the world (inductive reasoning) is also what causes school to be so difficult because our school systems are based on a step-by-step learning approach (deductive reasoning) which never makes any sense to us.

If you are reading this and can relate to anything I have said just believe you are not alone. This term  “dyslexia” or more correctly “right-brained” can be handled and handled successfully.  There is no reason to view dyslexia only as a disability.   By learning the proper skills and understanding the right-brain learning style,  all of the issues related to dyslexia can be solved or minimized.  We are proud of our right-brained view of the world and our creative,  problem-solving,  productive and tenacious natures!

We invite you to check out our website devoted to finding teaching solutions for dyslexia at Dyslexia Victoria Online:

www.dyslexiavictoria.ca